Marc Molinaro fundraiser in Dutchess County has top sponsorship price of $5,000

POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. -- A $5,000 check will buy some of business and industry's biggest players the executive VIP treatment at The Molinaro Cup -- Dutchess Executive County Marc Molinaro's second annual golf tournament at Trump National Hudson Valley.

In addition to a golf foursome at the Sept. 23 event, a top sponsorship spot will garner the buyer prominent recognition, their name on a golf flag, a future weekday foursome at the swanky Hopewell Junction golf course and lunch with Molinaro.

Other, less-expensive sponsorship opportunities available for the day range from the $2,500 VIP Foursome, which brings with it a golf foursome, prominent recognition and a name on a golf flag at the dinner; down to the $150 level, which buys sponsors signage at one golf tee.

To golf in the tournament costs $300 per person. To attend only the dinner that evening costs $125 a person.

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It is one of two golf tournaments Molinaro runs each year and is one of about six fundraisers he holds each year, he said.

Molinaro said he expects to take in between $20,000 and $25,000 from the event, once all the costs are paid.

"The annual spaghetti dinner in Tivoli, which costs $10 a head, raises between $15,000 and $20,000," he said.

Molinaro, who will run for re-election in 2015 and currently has a $79,000 warchest, said his campaign contributions are used not only to finance his own election efforts (he said his 2011 race against Democrat Dan French cost about $400,000) but also to help fund the campaigns of other Republicans and to fund his "public schedule," which includes attending a plethora of events put on by not-for-profit organizations each month.

Over the course of the past several years, some Democratic county legislators, most notably Legislator Joel Tyner, D-Clinton, have raised questions about what they believe are businesses buying their way into county government contracts through big campaign donations that the average citizen can't match.

The one-term county executive conceded the price of the top sponsorship ticket was steep, but he rejected any notion that the price tag, or the access to Molinaro that paying it buys, could be viewed as "pay-to-play," with people or businesses who contribute to his campaign gaining access to county business or him personally.

"For me, there never has been, and there never will be, any connection between who contributes to our fund raiser and who gets (county) contracts," Molinaro said.

He said the county this year has gone out to bid for more contracts than in recent years, including going out to bid for services that are exempt from the bidding process, and that he employs a strict screening process and strict standards "so we can't have our contracts called into question.

He said he also is easily accessible to the "average" county resident, whether on the streets of his hometown, in the supermarket or at any of the many public events he attends throughout the course of a week.